Aug 5, 2020
Dr. John Sweetenham, medical oncologist at the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern Medical Center and chief editor of the ASCO Daily News, and Dr. Don Dizon, head of Women’s Cancers at Lifespan Cancer Institute in Rhode Island and editor of the ASCO Educational Book, discuss the extraordinary breadth of issues in oncology that are covered in this year’s Educational Book, which is a continuing resource for the seminal ASCO20 Virtual.
Transcript
Dr. John Sweetenham: Hello, I'm Dr. John Sweetenham, a medical oncologist at the UT Southwestern Simmons Cancer Center, and chief editor of ASCO Daily News. I'm pleased to be the guest host of the podcast today and to welcome my colleague, Dr. Don Dizon. He's head of women's cancers at Lifespan Cancer Institute in Rhode Island, and editor of the ASCO Educational Book.
We'll discuss some of the compelling articles that have been
published in the Educational Book, some of which are also going to
be featured during the ASCO20 Virtual Education Program, and I'd
also like to chat about important topics that perhaps aren't being
covered during the program, but certainly deserve our attention. My
guest and I report no conflicts of interest relating to the issues
discussed in the podcast. Full disclosures relating to all Daily
News podcasts are available on our episode pages. Don, it's great
to have this opportunity to speak with you today.
Dr Don Dizon: I'm really happy to be here. Thanks
a lot.
Dr. John Sweetenham: The ASCO Educational Book
covers such an extraordinary breadth of issues from health services
and quality improvement to symptom control, survivorship, and more.
Can you tell us a little about what ASCO members can expect in the
Educational Book this year?
Dr. Don Dizon: Sure. I'm always happy to speak
about the Educational Book. At its most germaine, what I think we
have attempted to do is really live up to our ASCO President Skip
Burris' vision of the approach to oncology, which is not
approaching cancer with an individual's perspective, but really to
bring in the multiple voices that are seminally important in
everyone's experience with cancer.
So we have strived very much, and our authors were exceptionally
participatory in providing multidisciplinary articles on multiple
cancer topics, as you just mentioned, so that the reader, who is
importantly across the globe because the ASCO Educational Book is a
free resource, can get that multiple perspective view on the topic
related to malignancies.
Dr. John Sweetenham: Can you tell us a little
about some of the issues that maybe are not going to be covered in
the program, but you believe are going to be very relevant to what
we experience as oncologists today?
Dr. Don Dizon: I think across the Educational
Book, the topics that we dealt with are pretty detailed. Some of
the ones that I think are of importance is a whole aspects of
antibody drug conjugates, for example, which is covered in the
developmental therapeutics track of the Educational Book, and there
are multiple perspectives going from the basics of ADCs, all the
way up to the clinical application of, not only FDA approved ones,
but others that are in development. So that's very important, I
believe.
Global oncology is also covered, and although most of us are
practicing perhaps in the United States, we have attempted to bring
in multiple voices internationally because we recognize that ASCO
serves an international audience, and its members are not limited
to the United States. In the area of breast oncology, we attempted
to really cover multiple topics that are relevant across the
continuum of breast cancer, really paying attention to what
subgroups are guiding therapy these days, whether that be the
hormone positive subset, triple negative, the role of the
immunotherapy, but also the approaches to metastatic breast
cancer.
So I believe that all throughout the Educational Book, you will
find topics that are relevant, not only to the specialist, for a
more contemporary view of where the field is at, but also very
relevant for our folks who are in practice in our communities.
Dr. John Sweetenham: Great, thank you, and I think
one of the real strengths of the Educational Book is that it covers
many of those topics that I would say we think about some of the
time, but maybe we should be thinking of a little bit more. I'm
thinking specifically of adolescent and young adults with cancer,
fertility problems associated with cancer and its treatments, and
then some of these 'softer issues,' such as communication with our
patients, and more primary palliative care. Can you comment on some
of those areas that are going to be covered in the Educational Book
this year?
Dr. Don Dizon: Yeah, absolutely, I think you had
mentioned the issues concerning adolescents and young adults (with
cancer), and certainly there are topics that are relevant for folks
that we are hoping to cure and potentially are going to be alive
for many, many decades. And I think for those folks, we do want to
question the importance of addressing issues when we first meet
them, rather than saving them for end of treatment, or even four or
five years later. A classic example of that is fertility
preservation, but equally important is the topic of sexual health
in these patients, and I am very fortunate that our AYA topics did
deal with these issues that aren't routinely discussed, but
hopefully, this will really push our colleagues to embrace that
these are important aspects.
Same thing goes with palliative care, and the role of the
oncologists in the delivery of care, particularly for patients who
are not dealing with curative intent illness. And so I think the
Educational Book, not only summarizes the field, but with multiple
people generating that manuscript really drives home an action
item, which again, is one of the things we were pretty cognizant
about because at that end of the day, it's nice to have a summary,
but it's more important to provide guidance.
Dr. John Sweetenham: One of the other aspects of
the Education Program as a whole that I really like this year is
that I think that you and ASCO are tackling some issues which are a
little more almost edgy and controversial, and I'm thinking in
particular around issues such as disparities in access to care,
gender disparities in the oncology workforce, which I think is a
really interesting subject to address, and then some of my own kind
of pet controversies, I guess, such as the use of real world data
and cancer center advertising, which I think are all intriguing
subjects to be covered in the Education Program. Can you comment
just a little on how you decided to include those topics this
year?
Dr. Don Dizon: You know I will credit the
Education Committee for branching out just beyond the science of
oncology and really going into the practice, as well as the art of
oncology. The Educational Book and the topics we cover are only as
reflective of what the society feels is important for that annual
meeting. And I think in this regard, leadership really did embrace
a broad range of topics and tried to achieve one important aspect
across all of them, health equity and the approach to patients no
matter who they are and who they love and how they identify
themselves in terms of health equity, it was all about achieving
balance, in terms of who was invited to speak, who wrote articles
for and with us, and also the way the language of the Educational
Book was structured is very deliberate. We wanted to make a stance
that there is a better way to write about oncology, and there's a
better way to speak with each other.
And I think you'll see this reflected, not only in the Education
Session virtually, but hopefully you'll see that also approach in
the Educational Book. So the book is a continuing resource, I
think, for this seminal Education Program that was put together for
2020. Sadly, circumstances today led to the cancellation of the
in-person meeting, but I think the Education Program virtually is
going to be reflective of this exceptionally all encompassing view
of oncology practice. Fortunately, the Education Program will live
on for 2020 within the Educational Book.
Dr. John Sweetenham: All right, thank you. You
mentioned this extraordinary time. The moment in August of 2020.
It's difficult to talk about oncology and not bring up the issue of
COVID-19 and the pandemic. Can we expect to see that addressed in
the Education Program this year?
Dr. Don Dizon: The answer shortly is yes. The fact
that the Education Program really worked to identify and address
very contemporary issues is an important aspect of how reactive the
program has had to be. So there are two sessions in the Education
Program which are going to be really important, I think, for all of
us. One from the trainees perspective and how programs are managing
COVID-19's presence as we train the next generation of oncologists
in our fellowship programs, this has, I'm sure, John, you feel the
same. It did impact the program here at Brown University, as
it did, I'm sure, all across the country, and it's impacting how we
select fellows for the coming year. Given that not everybody is
able, willing, or should travel to meet with programs. So virtual
interviews are on the horizon, and I think hearing from program
directors about how they are going to manage that virtual aspect of
interviewing, and more importantly, advice to people who are
interviewing is going to be as important.
I think one of the quickest collaborations in the history of
medicine, especially oncology, was around COVID-19 and cancer, and
there will also be a roundtable on that specific issue that is
going to be a part of the Education Sessions this year.
Dr. John Sweetenham: Yeah, I guess I hadn't really
thought of it so much, but I guess that virtual interviews may
require a very different skill set from the ones we use for our
in-person interviews, right?
Dr. Don Dizon: I think it will be. I'm a big
advocate for social media, for example, but people have critiqued
your background. Where you are selecting to do the interview might
be important for program directors to get a better sense of who you
are, but it also behooves us as clinicians to appear professionally
as well when we're representing our programs.
Dr. John Sweetenham: Right, absolutely. Well, it's
difficult to believe, but I think that we are just coming to the
end of our time. Don, thank you for your time. It's been a real
pleasure listening to you, and I just want to say congratulations
on what I think is an outstanding Education Program. Very, very,
very broad, and I think we're all going to learn a lot this
year.
Dr. Don Dizon: Thank you so much, John. It's
always a pleasure to speak with you. Hopefully, next year we'll be
in person. Just one other shout out that for the Education Program,
just for everyone who's attending, 74% of the sessions that are
going to be presented have a companion Educational Book article,
and I'm exceptionally proud of that. Thank you very much, John.
Dr. John Sweetenham: Thank you. That's
outstanding, and thanks to our listeners for joining us today.
Please take a moment to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Thanks again, and goodbye.
Disclaimer: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to
inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and
is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual
conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions,
experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service,
organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an
ASCO endorsement.
COI Disclosures:
Dr. John Sweetenham
Honoraria: Seattle Genetics
Dr. Don Dizon
Stock and Ownership Interests: InfiniteMD, NeuHope
Consulting/Advisory: i-Mab, Clovis Oncology, AstraZeneca, Regeron, Tesaro, Merck, Sharp & Dohme, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Kazia Pharmaceuticals